Intel India staff health benefits extended to domestic partners

Intel India has extended healthcare benefits to the same-sex or opposite-sex domestic partners of employees and added insurance coverage for gender reassignment procedures as part of efforts towards creating a more inclusive workplace.Employees can enrol their same-sex or opposite-sex domestic partners as dependents in the hospitalisation insurance policy, effective January 1. Once enrolled, the domestic partner is also covered in the employee’s outpatient policy. Additionally, domestic partners can be registered as nominees or beneficiaries in term life and personal accident insurance policies.The benefits now include gender reassignment procedures - including hormone therapy, surgical interventions and psychiatric consultation/medication related to gender reassignment.Other companies that offer similar benefits to members of the LGBT+ community include Godrej Group, Tata Steel, TCS, Accenture, Intuit and RBS India.“Diversity and inclusion have always been key to Intel’s evolution and the enhanced benefits reflect the changing needs of an increasingly diverse workforce,” Nivruti Rai, country head of Intel India, told ET. “We have been working on having a more open culture at the workplace that reflects different kinds of diversity - not just gender.”The enhanced benefits cover mental health conditions requiring hospitalisation related to psychiatric, psychosomatic, developmental, anxiety and stress-related disorders, said Rai. This is in addition to the outpatient policy that covers psychiatric consultation/medication and the employee assistance programme that offers free counselling services for employees and their families.Further, the group medical insurance policy has been widened to include genetic disorders and external congenital conditions of a life-threatening nature.The expanded benefits are the latest in a series of enhancements over the past year which include the introduction of the outpatient policy, inclusion of infertility treatments and extension of paternity leave from two to six weeks. There is also a resource group for members and allies of the LGBT+ community, called IGLOBE.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2GuctI8